It’s important to remember that NH is nice. Trees abound, cost of living is cheap, everything is alarmingly close. If you live in Nashua, no matter where exactly you live, you’re no more than fifteen minutes from work. It’s like a reality as designed by Chris Maahs. I never thought I would say that and feel comforted.
The bad part is that works sucks. SUCKS. It’s the worse job I’ve had by a good long ways. I shouldn’t complain, because I knew what I was getting myself into – there’s only so good a contracting job at a defense company can be. One might find, in rare cases, a cool job at a defense company, but not as a contractor, I think.
What I tell myself, over and over, is that this is for a higher purpose. We needed cash, badly. In fact, my personal situation paralleled the American economy pretty nicely. Monica and I were the automakers with only a short while left before bankruptcy kicked in. The difference is that I got a job, and the automakers will get a government handout, or they’ll fold. The other difference is that if Monica and I went bankrupt nobody would give a shit.
Anyway, I’m here for a reason. And outside of work things are pretty cool – I rented a room from a lady whose friendly and kind and who spends most of her time out of the house. I can watch all the Celtics games on TV, in the time that I don’t have after going to the gym (which is well-equipped, though not the sunlit heaven that is Lifetime Fitness.)
And that’s the chief problem. The only way this works is if I use the circumstances to make progress in ways that I need to make progress. I’m writing every day, in an effort to win a contest against my loathsome Clarion colleagues, about which more later. I had other goals – goals for furthering my technical abilities even as they languish in this idiotic contracting gig – but there’s just no time. By the time I come home, cook, and eat, I’ve got two hours, tops, before bed. I can pick one thing. There’s no room for error.
Which is why LSH has suffered. I’m going to try mightily to pick up the pace – perhaps my collaborators can help with this – but the reality is that a post a day ain’t happening, and what posts there are will probably be heavily steeped in cat-blog flavor. This will doubtless be good news for some, so maybe that’s a silver lining of sorts. If you want to hear about my riveting life and times, well, do I have news for you, son.